New York Times best-selling author Sarah Mlynowski has loved fairy tales since she was a little girl. The only thing she loved more was changing the details of her favorite stories so they happened just the way she wanted them to.
“My mom will tell you my favorite story growing up was 'Princess and the Pea,'" Mlynowski said. "But I didn’t like vegetables, so instead of a pea under the mattress, there were M&M's. I loved chocolate.”
Keeping up the tradition of changing fairy tales, Mlynowski’s Whatever After series follows sister-and-brother duo Abby and Jonah as they enter fairy tales and somehow end up altering them. Whether they're saving Snow White from eating the poisoned apple or Abby’s best friend is getting pricked by a cursed spindle instead of Sleeping Beauty, adventure and mishap follow the siblings as they try to keep the stories from spinning out of control.
The latest book in the series, "Whatever After: Genie in a Bottle" (Scholastic Press, $14.99, ages 8-12), follows Abby and Jonah as they go into the basement at midnight and step into their magical mirror, this time falling into the story of Aladdin. It’s not the Disney version readers may be used to; Mlynowski always refers instead to the original fairy tales, which inspired the series.
When Mlynowski started reading some of her favorite fairy tales to her daughters, now ages 7 and 3, she realized the stories might not be appropriate for them.
“As I started reading … the ending of these stories were horrible, and I was embarrassed to read (the stories) to them,” Mlynowski said.
Her desire to make the stories right was the basis for the Whatever After series. Mlynowski said she wanted to find a way to introduce the stories to her daughters but take out the parts that were gruesome or not in line with today’s thinking.
So in her Aladdin, there are two genies, just like in the original story — but this time, one of them is a girl named Karimah. She’s a new genie, a former elementary school teacher who struggles to gain control of her powers. Throughout the story, Karimah discovers she is stronger than she believed.
Karimah helps Abby, Jonah and Aladdin win over the heart of the princess and defeat the evil magician. Strong female characters such as Karimah and Abby are often found in Mlynowski’s writing.
“I don’t go into it thinking, ‘Oh, I must make this girl power,'" Mlynowski said. "It just happens naturally, to create strong, fun, smart girl characters.”
Mlynowski said her characters are inspired in part by her daughters. As they get older, she said, they inspire more specific parts of the story, and her older daughter is her special assistant as she writes; Mlynowski reads early drafts to her to see her gut reaction to the scenes.
“I’m just grateful she’ll sit and listen to me," Mlynowski said. "It’s been amazing to me to be able to read them to her and see when she recognizes a family joke in the dialogue. It’s fun.”
Her books aren’t just for girls, though; with Jonah as the sidekick, the stories can appeal to boys as well. At the heart of it all is the fairy tales gone wrong, not the princesses and tiaras.
When deciding which stories to include, Mlynowski goes through well-known fairy tales until a story stands out to her.
“Then I read a lot of versions of the story and see how my characters can mess it up, then I go from there," she said.
It all starts from one crucial scene. Mlynowski said she can visualize the scene where the story changes and her characters start making their own story. After that scene, she just writes until all the details fall into place.
“Those scenes are always my favorite, when they do the thing they aren’t supposed to and it makes me laugh,” she said.
In "Genie in a Bottle," Abby is tired from staying up late reading books for her school’s read-a-thon and accidentally frees the genie, complicating the wishing process and everything affected by it.
With eight other books already in the series, Mlynowski said there’s no limit to how many are still to come.
“It was only supposed to be four books, but I kept coming up with ideas, and now I don’t ever want it to end,” she said.
She gets plenty of requests from fans for stories they want to see Abby and Jonah fall into, and she has worked out a way for her characters to enter non-fairy tales in the future.
"When readers ask to see a specific story, they don't differentiate between fairy tales or other stories," she said. "So when they asked for ‘Alice in Wonderland’ or ‘Peter Pan,’ I found myself wanting to make that happen."
She said sometimes it's hard for her to believe she is still changing fairy tales like she did as a little girl.
“Every day, I pinch myself and can’t believe I get to do this as a job," Mlynowski said. "I’m a lucky girl.”
"Whatever After: Genie in a Bottle" has no foul language, violence or sexual content.
Tara Creel is a Logan-native-turned-California-girl and mother of four boys. Her email is taracreel@gmail.com, and she blogs at taracreelbooks.wordpress.com.